A trip to follow Thanksgiving

So I get to take a trip the week after Thanksgiving which is exciting even though it's for work.  Since I run a manufacturing plan with only a few people...we get a little wiggle room as to when we want to take our holidays where Corporate doesnt because there are more people there.

For example: Thanksgiving is a paid holiday for the Thursday of, as well as the Friday following... two paid 8 hour days.  Well we work 10 hour days so we have to use 4 hours of personal time to get full checks (my guys do, not me because I'm salary, but you get the point)... our work week would normally be Monday through Thursday ten hour days.  We would usually work Monday and Tuesday be off Wednesday and Thursday for the holiday since we are off on Friday and Thursday is the holiday anyway...

(confused yet?) Well we decided as a group to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, be off Thursday for the holiday, be off our normal 3 day weekend and then be off Monday for the holiday--sweet right.

Well then I'm going to get on a plane from Norfolk and fly into Jacksonville, Fl where corporate is on Tuesday, sightsee a few hours, crash--go into the office for 8 hours for training on Wednesday, sightsee some more, crash, go into the office a half a day on Thursday, sightsee a little bit more... go back to the airport and fly back to Norfolk on Thursday evening, drive home and then start my three day weekend... such a rough couple of weeks that will be, lol. 

But here's the exciting part.  The executive assistant to the CEO told me what the closest hotel to the office was and a room there was like 140 bucks which is just absurd in my opinion even if it is on the company's dime.  So I went to hotwire and booked a room at: A Golf Resort with water views for $88 a night! Holler.

It's a 20 minute drive to the office, but considering I had to get a rental car anyway... no biggie--got one of those for like twenty bucks a day... OH YEAH! and my flight cost less than 250 bucks round trip... the company should soooooo thank for me for the money I'm saving them for this trip with like an extra night there just for fun like in the Summer time when I can really enjoy the water in Florida, lol. 

Sorry, I'm easily amused, can't help it.  I've already scoped out a local lighthouse to potentially visit...some sites for great photos and just some stuff to do to make the most of my visit... it's going to good stuff!!!

Facebook Free

My life has been friggin' fabulous since getting rid of Facebook, just thought Id share.

Hurricane season and life on the east coast

So Jen's mom called in a quasi-panic asking about the hurricane... she's still in Colorado where Jen is from and always gets worried when we have hurricanes roll in. 

This was after I got a text from Jen asking if we had our hurricane supplies (my first thought being... what the hell are hurricane supplies... yes, you'd think that spending all of my 31 years on the east coast I'd know all of this by now, but I never think about it... and the fact that 26 of those 31 years have been spent about 45 minutes inland of Va Beach oceanfront and prime hurricane territory... but I suppose that since I'm so used to them its no big deal.

I guess it's like places where it snows all the time... like Minnesota--I'm sure folks there don't freak out everytime they see a snowflake... ya know....

So anyway, the really awful part of this story and the detail that makes me a really awful and out of touch person is the fact that Jen mentioned a hurricane the other day and called it by name, "Sandy" and I was like, "Sandy? We're in the "S"s already, where the hell have I been?" I really had no idea...

I really should start watching the news.  But the news is so depressing...hell even the weather part of it.  I'd rather be surprised... carry around my super big gay rainbow umbrella and just keep on truckin'...

I dunno...

What makes things different for me now is that my parents are retired officially and now living down on Hatteras Island, past Rodanthe in Salvo, NC... where just last year during Hurricane Irene their beach house was ruined and had to be gutted and they were just able to move into it...

They didn't evacuate for it... and part of hwy 12 has been compromised...other portions had already been closed off because of water and sand in the road... I checked www.obxconnection.com message boards and have seen pictures of houses at Mirlo Beach (previous home of Serendipity--the house they used in the movie "Nights in Rodanthe" with Richard Gere...but later moved because it was going to fall into the ocean...) about to, or falling into the ocean.... 

This stuff is crazy... they are getting hit with the worst of it now.  We've just been getting a lot of rain...no wind yet... So tomorrow morning, I'll set my alarm for earlier than four to give me extra time to coax the dogs out into the "swamp" of a front yard and then inch my way down the back roads to the interstate and just go from there...

I talked to mom earlier, I let her know that they already cancelled schools tomorrow so lil man is out... and in the conversation she mentioned how she had to put on her hip waiters (that she'd normally use to go sound fishin or surf fishin if it's super cold, lol) just to walk to dog today.... i had to laugh because if she was going to all that trouble to stay dry then what about Earl, her dog...he's just a miniature schnauzer.... can he breathe under water and pee at the same time?

Still impressed by R E Bradshaw

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had just discovered an author named R. E. Bradshaw.  She's a lesbian fiction writer and pretty good.  Well I had decided to read another one of her books to see if I really like her stuff or to see if the first one I had read had just been a fluke.  So far she's two for two.  I didn't like the second one as much as the first, but I still liked it. 

I read Waking Up Gray a couple of weeks ago and this weekend read, The Girl Back Home.  I like her style over all.  I've started reading Sweet Carolina Girls now... so lets see how that one turns out and if I keep reading on a rampage or start pace myself...lol...

I'm getting back into a writing my random thoughts face--working on my book eventually again and i have some paintings that i need to start and others I need to finish...lots of projects on the fire right now.

For now though--I'm kind of a fan of distraction via lesbian fiction... my other projects will still be there when i get around to them...that's whats so awesome about procrastination. :)

the irony of it

I had been having the worst bout with headaches imaginable for well over a month and a half.  I take a medication for migranes (despite it being used for other things... it comes in handy since I don't generally have headaches), so with me having these god awful headaches nonstop all the time I was beginning to get concerned to say the least. 

They got so bad sometimes that when I moved my headI had to freeze mid-movement because of the throbbing, shooting pain made me feel like i was going to black out.  I had to keep funtioning so I just kind of got used to having a permanent headache and started making jokes about it probably being a brain tumor and kept it moving.

A couple of weeks ago I started considering the possibility of it being sinus related or something.  I had to consider any possiblity so that they would go away. They headache spanned from my eyeballs across the top of my head  and down the base of my neck... it was insane. 

Well the turn of events came when I woke up last Monday and had toothache from hell.  Like to the point that I wanted to pull all of my teeth out on the right side of my mouth out myself with no novacaine, and I considered it for real.  I went to work as usual because I had to do payroll for the guys and ensure everyone's time was submitted for the payweek that friday... well as soon as that was done and 8:00 am rolled around (4 fucking hours after I woke up with this issue...longest 4 hours of my life) I went to my insurance website to locate the closest dentist to my house (opted for the house rather than work because I figured the odds of getting in at a "country" dentist were way more likely than one in "civilization" such as Chesapeake...)

I lucked up and the first one I called had an opening for the very next day at 8:30...

I called my boss and was approved to take a sick day, emailed corporate so they could put in my sick day time and all that jazz, slept in three and a half hours and then headed off to the little po-dunk dentist that actually ended up being pretty high tech as far as the x-ray machine went...

So anyway... the xray showed nothing wrong with my teeth and i looked at the dentist and was going off in my head about 'what the fuck do you know you backwoods quack (which is pretty fucking crazy since I've been raised in the country my entire life, doesn't make me an ignorant rednect like all these folks out here, lol--lucky for me, it's not contagious, just like me being a lesbian isn't contagious to them...hahahah) but anyway...

I was like they what the hell is wrong because its making my entire head hurt doc... he feels my jaw and informed me that i was having a muscle spasm in my jaw on the right side...yes... a mother fucking CHARLIE HORSE IN MY JAW...have you ever heard of such a thing... Had the hygenist not been non-stop talking to me about her bible study and choir this and choir that and almost past out when I used the word pissed I would have sooooo taken the opportunity to point out the irony and total humor in the fact that there was a big ol lesbo sitting there with basically a case of lockjaw---HAHAHAHAH.... how random is it to get a charlie horse in your jaw... either way they suck.

After a week of "mouth stretches" long showers with hot water beating down on it, and hot compresses, no charlie horse and no headaches...good grief!!!

A new addition... The boxer

We have a new addition to our "non-traditional" family... He is a bed hog, farts in his sleep and looks like an old man... His name is Ruca (pronounced roo-ca like a cow goes moo). His previous owner had a 2 month old baby, an 8 and 9 year old and a navy husband who always seemed deployed.... So he was headed to a shelter... Instead he was placed at Rainbow casa lol... Pepper is getting used to him and pouting quite a bit, Lil man loves him, Jen adores him, I think he's great but worry about pepper... He is 3 and already house broke crate trained and neutered oh and did I mention awesome and cute as hell? Take a look for yourself... He's never been to the country or had this much space to run he is loving life...

new book

OMG!!!!

I found a new book that I'm in love with and an author that I may become obsessed with...we'll see once I read another one of her books, lol. 

I read Waking Up Gray by R. E. Bradshaw and it was phenomenal. 

You see, what had happened was: I was down at the beach at my parents house (because they are officially retired now and living in Salvo, NC on Hatteras Island, NC--my favorite place in the entire world) and I decided to find a couple of new books to download to my kindle app on the Ipad while down there and using their wifi since I don't have internet in the country...

I think I may have searched under lighthouses or something, can't remember but I'm glad i came across it because this book was incredible.  It takes place on Ocracoke Island, NC (which is the island down past Hatteras that you have to take the ferry to get to that I go to occassionally, but only on day trips...) and this forty year old woman goes down for a few month sabatical to finish her thesis, but gets distracted by her neighbor... that just so happens to be an attractive lesbian...

Amazon's description is much better:

Can you start your life over at forty? Lizbeth Jackson was about to find out. She found her first gray hair on the morning of her trip to Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. Lizbeth was about to begin a three month sabbatical, on the scenic coastal island, in order to finish her Master's thesis in Linguistic Anthropology. She plans to study the Carolina Brogue spoken there. What she ends up studying is her lesbian neighbor across the street and the uncontrollable pull Lizbeth feels toward her. Lizbeth Jackson is about to find out what life has to offer, after waking up gray.

Let's just say that it kept my OCD anal ass on the couch from start to finish reading it...dishes piled up, laundry didn't get done, I didn't care...I just wanted to read this book...I just really liked it.  Check it out.  She has several other books, I've got to do a little research to figure out what order to read them in...

an ode to the woman I love...

I can’t remember what inspired the conversation or what show we were watching but Jen wanted to know what my favorite story to tell people about her is… I went blank.  I have a lot of favorite stories—it doesn’t necessarily mean that any of them are appropriate for just everyday conversation.  I have several stories specific to just her, or just lil man, the first time we did “this or that” or that time when… a plethora of memories that could be spewed from my mind trap at any given time, except apparently when put on the spot by my partner looking for heartfelt sentiment and a little something to make her feel loved…  it’s a real shame that I went blank and had to play it off and say that really I don’t talk to anyone which is the truth… I don’t have many friends these days and those that I do talk to already know those stories so I don’t tell my “favorite” stories regularly…

So in no particular order here are some of my favorite Jen stories/moments/memories

I took Jen down to the Outer Banks, NC for her first time a few months after we started dating.  We officially were an item as of November 8^th, 2008.  I was fresh out of a rebound relationship with a forty something “child” after a two year relationship that was a nonstop break up make up fight/cry fest… Jen wasn’t too long out of her first lesbian relationship where her heart had for a lack of better words been ripped to shreds (all of this following a divorce)…  fast forward Jen’s transfer from Colorado to Virginia for work, she met me and off we went.

 A weekend trip planned to my favorite place in the world.  Somewhere I’ve gone every year of my life several times a year since I was born—sharing that with a woman I was falling in love with.  I was taking her to Hatteras Island—Salvo to be specific.  My parents had a house there.  Not one of those fancy schmancy houses, it was a one story simple house that was built in the fifties and used to belong to my grandparents, but I digress.

One thing that had bothered me a little since Jen and I started dating was that she had a necklace she wore that had been given to her by her ex.  I couldn’t understand wearing something that was still tied to an ex, to me it was just bad “juju” but I realized that she had to work past those demons on her own, in her own time.

I prepared Jen the best I could with how wonderful the beach/ocean was, but secretly hoped I hadn’t oversold it to the point she’d be disappointed. I mean, she’s from Colorado, some folks are all mountains and snow and just don’t get down with sand and water… I explained to her about how when you get past Grandy, NC, usually near Wright Memorial Bridge—the air changes and your worries and cares begin to wash away.  By the time you get to the actual island you barely have any issues left and once you get your feet in the sand… nothing matters.  You’re on island time, the salt air, sea breeze, sun, smells, everything combined—nothing matters except what you want to. 

My most proud and exciting moment was when Jen rolled down her window when we hit the second bridge along our way, the Oregon Inlet bridge—this particular bridge is much taller and longer than the first one to get onto the Outer Banks.. she put down the window unexpectedly, but I just figured she was taking in the smells… Nope she had taken the necklace off so she could toss it into the Atlantic Ocean to never be seen again.  She freed herself from her ex and all the ties that lingered.

I took her to the see the ocean for the first time, feel the sand in her toes for the first time, see the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse for the first time---a plethora of first times and my favorite part was her timing… she had pitched the “bad juju” well before Rodanthe—marking a completely untainted fresh start for the two of us.  Incredible.

Another of my favorite memories was when I was my second time meeting her.  We met through myspace.com back in the day when myspace was cool and started talking just as friends.  It was kind of screwed up considering that I was in a relationship with this older chick, laying next to her but thinking about this chick Jen (who I didn’t really know but loved talking to and couldn’t get out of my friggin’ head)… but anyway…  The first time I met her, I worked 2^nd shift so I got off at 11:30 pm and went to her town house—she was wearing yoga pants, had a tank top with a zip up fitted hoodie zipped enough to show cleavage, long hair pulled up in a messy ponytail and smelled like something I wanted to have my face buried in, lol… omg it was soooo hard to behave.  Jen kept biting her bottom lip and I wanted to walk over and bite it for her.  She kept tugging at her hoodie and drawing attention to her boobs—such a total tease.  I didn’t kiss her that night, I did give her a hug, but I texted her later and told her that I wanted to kiss her some kind of bad and thought about turning my truck around just to kiss her… but I behaved… and stood my ground on that one… (I can’t quite recall why)

The second meeting was at her work.  She managed a movie theatre and I took my friend Julie and a couple other friends to see Twilight or some other dumb movie and I was sooooo nervous…. It was ridiculous.  I’ve never had a great deal of game, but I mean Jen has always had me out of sorts… but in a good way.  When I saw her this time I almost fell the hell out.  She had her hair down and she had straightened it… it was half way down her back…she had a her business clothes on (as was the dress code for her job back then) and her glasses…which I love… I think about that often…

I’ve since given her several makeovers got rid of her super long hair got her used to pretty short hair and got rid of her “fake lesbo” acrylic nails…because lets face it those things are just not conducive to the lifestyle, lol…

My all time favorite was the look on her face when I introduced her as my girlfriend or my partner, no matter where I was—at all times, I never hid who she was… she wasn’t used to that.  In her other relationship she was “closeted”… not in this one… I’ve helped her come out quite a bit and granted she’s still not nearly as out as I am, but compared to her past, it’s like going from John Doe on the gay scale to Ellen Degeneres on the scale… I dunno if that makes sense or not, but hey, it makes sense to me and well that’s all that damn matters…

The moral of the story is there are plenty of stories that I love to think about Jen—not all that I necessarily share all the time, but none of which I should have gone blank on when Jen needed some reassurance the most… tisk tisk tisk.